Winning turnover battle vital if Texans to beat Patriots

1of2Whitney Mercilus, left, and J.J. Watt hope to extract the ball from Tom Brady much as they did in forcing a fumble by Vikings QB Christian Ponder.Photo: Brett Coomer, Staff

2of2In the first meeting on Dec. 10, the Texans successfully completed the first part of this play as J.J. Watt stripped the ball from the Patriots' Danny Woodhead. But a potential turnover ended up as a New England touchdown when Brandon Lloyd beat Whitney Mercilus (59) to the fumble in the end zone.Photo: Nick de la Torre, Staff

Ask Gary Kubiak what the Texans absolutely must do to beat the New England Patriots on Sunday, and he's answering almost before the question is finished.

"The most important thing," Kubiak said, "is to win the turnover battle."

There you have it. It's first-grade math, the coach explained, and he should know. The Texans have won a few games during Kubiak's tenure when they wound up on the wrong side of the takeaway/giveaway count, but they have won a whole bunch when they've been at their larcenous, pilfering best.

Since 2006, the season Kubiak took the Texans' reins, they are 20-1 when forcing at least three turnovers - and 8-0 with four or more. Even the mostly mediocre teams of the Dom Capers era went 9-2 on their hat-trick days.

A corollary statistic: When Kubiak's Texans have coughed up the ball at least three times, they're 6-17. (Capers was 1-13.)

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Take it away

Teams that have forced the most turnovers:

Team Total Int. Fum.

Bears 44 24 20

Patriots 41 20 21

Giants 35 21 14

Cardinals 33 22 11

Falcons 31 20 11

Seahawks 31 18 13

Redskins 31 21 10

Bengals 30 14 16

Texans 29 15 14

Browns 29 17 12

Far from invincible

Tom Brady may be 10-2 at home in the playoffs, but he's only 2-2 since 2007:

Season Round Opp. Result Comp.-Att. Yds. TD Int. Rating

2009 Wild card Ravens L 33-14 23-42 154 2 3 49.1

2010 Division Jets L 28-21 29-45 299 2 1 89.0

2011 Division Broncos W 45-10 26-34 363 6 1 137.6

2011 Championship Ravens W 23-20 22-36 239 0 2 57.5

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But none of this is calculus. If the Texans' giveaways are fewer than their takeaways in their Foxborough encore, the statistical odds suggest they have a reasonable chance of reversing the outcome of a month ago when the Patriots administered a painful 42-14 razor cut at Gillette Stadium.

While that's easily contemplated in theory, executing it presents the Texans with their greatest challenge of the season because New England rarely loses these turnover fights. It happened just once this season, when the Patriots were beaten 41-34 by San Francisco.

QB a tough nut to crack

A further serious complication is how opportunistic the Texans haven't been of late. Their last two-takeaway game was Dec. 2, when they set a franchise record with six at Tennessee, their fourth game of at least three in 2012. Also not coincidentally, the Texans are 2-3 since.

"It's amazing," Kubiak said of the turnover downturn. "We emphasize it in practice and do everything we can (to set up turnovers). But it's too late in the year to have guys beat on each other in practice like they do (in training camp). It's hard to explain. Sometimes these things go in cycles."

Johnathan Joseph's late third-quarter interception was the lone takeaway for the home team. Worse, the Bengals' Leon Hall trumped Joseph's theft with a pick-six to account for the visitors' only touchdown. Such mistakes by Matt Schaub against the Patriots are certain to have dire consequences unless the Texans can respond in kind at Tom Brady's expense.

The conventional wisdom? Good luck with that.

"He's been at the top of his game for many years, not just this year," Kubiak said of Brady, who's trying to become the first quarterback to lead a team to a sixth Super Bowl. "He's a tremendous player, a Hall of Fame football player. He gets rid of the ball extremely quick, which can frustrate a defense from that standpoint. They'll just sit there and nitpick you and make you pay for every little mistake you make. He's exceptional.

"(The Patriots are) going to make plays. We know that. But we're going to have to step up and make some big ones ourselves. That's what we've got to do. We've got to do down there and be aggressive as a football team - offensively, defensively, special teams. We've got to challenge ourselves to go get that done."

Can history repeat?

It's worth noting Brady is more fallible at home in the postseason than during the regular season, especially of late. After missing all but a few snaps of the 2008 season with a serious knee injury, he's 2-2 in the playoffs at Gillette and has delivered only a solitary masterpiece, the 45-10, six-touchdown-pass showing-up of Tim Tebow and Denver last January.

In two games against Baltimore, Brady threw five interceptions against just two TD passes. The New York Jets also held him reasonably in check in their shocking 28-21 division-round upset of January 2011. Remember, that was a Rex Ryan team Brady had massacred 45-3 on a Monday night in December, four days shy of two years before he humiliated the Texans.

The parallels between the two regular-season routs that preceded playoff rematches are striking. Brady had four touchdowns among his 21 completions against the Jets with no interceptions, exactly the numbers he put up against the Texans.

Talking about Brady and the Patriots after the Cincinnati victory, Joseph bravely contended, "They aren't world-beaters," and that sentiment will be pounded into the Texans' heads all week by their coaches. The other corner, Kareem Jackson, who made a team-leading four - of the Texans' 15 - interceptions this season, promised "a different mindset" for Round 2.

Dale Robertson is the longest-tenured sports writer at a major daily newspaper in Texas, having spent 18 years with the Houston Post (1972-90) before joining the Houston Chronicle in the fall of 1990. His primary sports duties include covering the Texans, the Houston Marathon, the Shell Houston Open PGA tournament and the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship, a stop on the ATP World Tour. He’s also the Chronicle’s wine columnist while writing occasionally about health issues and travel destinations.

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